F-117A

STEALTHFIGHTER

Jane'sHOW TO FLY AND FIGHT IN THE

F-117A

STEALTHFIGHTER

JON LAKE

HarperCollinsPublishers

F- I I 7A

HarperCollinsPublishers77-85 Fulham Palace RoadHammersmithLondon W6 8JB

First Published in Great Britain byHarperCollinsPublishers 1997

1 3 5 7 9 1 0 8 6 4 2

Copyright Jon Lake 1997

ISBN 0 00 470109 8

Cover painting: lain WyllieColour illustrations: John Ridyard and Chris Davey (3-view)Editor: Ian DairyDesign: Rod TeasdaleProduction Manager: David Lennox

Colour reproduction by ColourscanPrinted in Italy by Rotolito

All rights reserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopyingor otherwise, without the prior writtenpermission of the publishers.

F- I I 7A

CONTENTS6

INTRODUCTION

8WHY STEALTH?

14SECRET STRIKE FORCE

32FRONTLINE SERVICE

46FLYING TODAY'S MISSION

88A FUTURE FOR STEALTH?

F- I I 7A

INTRODUCTION:THE ELITE SURPRISEOf all the pilots in the US armed forces,those who fly the Lockheed F-l 17 areperhaps the most justified in thinking ofthemselves as an elite. Although it wasconceived, designed and delivered at theheight of the Cold War, when the USAFprocured its aircraft in hundreds, only 59production examples of the F-1 17 wereever built. The aircraft was conceived as a'Silver Bullet', a highly specialized precisionattack weapon capable of flying missionstoo difficult and too dangerous for anyother airplane in the inventory.

Below: The F-117A istoday openly flown bythe 49th Fighter Wingfrom Holloman AFB,New Mexico, close tothe White Sands NationalMonument, a far cryfrom its secretbeginnings.

The aircraft was primarily intended to act as asurprise attacker, a secret strategic asset readyfor use in some covert mission ordereddirectly by the President, perhaps one wheredeniability would be useful. Typical projectedmissions included attacks against individualterrorist leaders, or attacks on C3 (Command,Control & Communication) sites during a

hostage rescue mission. Alternatively, in areal war with the Warsaw Pact, the F-l 1 7 Acould have flown as a pathfinder, attackingkey air-defense sites to allow conventionalbombers and fighter bombers to follow upwith their own attacks. This would make theF-11 7A an effective force multiplier, makingconventional fighter bombers moreproductive and less vulnerable. Either way,only a handful of these versatile aircraft wereneeded.Pilots for this unique machine are themselvesalso something of a rare breed. Only a smallnumber of pilots have ever qualified to fly theF-11 7, and each has been assigned aconsecutive 'Bandit number' to mark hisachievement. To preserve security, Banditnumbers were secret, and began at 150 forservice pilots, with numbers from 100 for testpilots. In the earliest days of the program, F-11 7 pilots were assigned to an aircraft whosevery existence was a closely guarded secret,and they could not reveal which aircraft theyflew, even to their own families: they lived astrange nocturnal existence, isolated from therest of the world. Today the existence and

INTRODUCTION

mission of the F-117 is known, but theaircraft is still surrounded by great secrecy.You need special authorization even to goclose enough to the airplane to touch itsstrange black skin, and many of itstechnologies and capabilities remain veryhighly classified.The F-117A has been seen in the staticdisplays of a number of airshows in the USAand even in the UK and in Europe. Buteverywhere it has appeared, its groundcrewhave erected barriers at least 18 feet from itswingtips nose and tail, and armed guards arethere to ensure that no-one goes any closer

than that. The pilot might stand by thebarrier, basking in the limelight, signingposters and programs for small boys andanswering simple questions with easy charm.But start getting technical and he'll move on,or parrot a rehearsed answer which actuallymeans nothing at all. He certainly wouldn'tbe willing to confirm publicly most of whatis written in the pages that follow, though95% of this information has been providedby program insiders. The US Air Force willnot let the public anywhere near the F-117.This book puts you in its cockpit and lets youride along as it flies a typical mission.

Above: Hal Farley wasthe pilot of the first F-117 (then known simplyby its Senior Trendcodename) for its maidenflight on 18 June 1981.He has since been thedriving force behind theaircraft's flight testprogramme. His unique'Bandit Number' reflectshis unparallelledimportance to theprogramme. He is'Bandit 117'.

F- I I 7A

SECRET ORIGINS:WHY STEALTH?

American experience in the Vietnam war andIsraeli experience in the Yom Kippur warconclusively demonstrated the danger posedby increasingly sophisticated Soviet SAMsand air-defense radar. Intelligence sourcesindicated that the USSR would soon bedeploying advanced interceptors withimproved lookdown/shootdown capability.The SAM-5 was capable of reaching 125,000ft and could be nuclear-tipped, taking careof any minor aiming errors. In the 1973 YomKippur war, Israel lost some 109 aircraft in18 days, these falling to second-best exportSoviet SAMs manned by ill-trained Egyptianand Syrian crews. One answer to theincreasing vulnerability of tactical aircraftwas to dedicate forces to electronic warfare,jamming enemy radar, or locating anddirectly attacking air-defense systems. Butexperience in Vietnam and the Middle Eastseemed to indicate that the allocation ofresources to EW (Electronic Warfare) andSEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defences)was unable to halt a growing loss rate andthat there had to be another, better answer.

The far-sighted suggested that one suchanswer could lie in the reduction of the radarcross section (RCS) of tactical aircraft. Thiswould decrease the effective range of enemyradars, potentially to a point at whichinterception would be impossible before thebomber reached its target. Lockheed madeplans to resurrect its D-21 reconnaissancedrone as the basis of a manned or unmannedattack aircraft, this vehicle having enjoyed thelowest RCS recorded to that date.

In 1975 the USAF held a Radar Camouflage.Symposium at Wright-Patterson AFB, andsoon afterwards, DARPA (Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency) invited Northrop,McDonnell Douglas and three otheraerospace companies to design proof-of-concept stealth aircraft in a competitionfunded in 1976. The winner would receive acontract to build two demonstrator aircraft.

Above left: A model ofthe original 'Have Blue'hangs in Lockheed'sanechoic chamber, duringearly tests of radar crosssection (RCS).

Below: Extensive use wasmade of sub-scalemodels for accuratemeasurement of RCS.Much of the work had tobe carried out by night.

SECRET ORIGINS

Remarkably, Lockheed were not invited tosubmit a design, not least because its existingStealth experience (the SR-71 reconnaissanceaircraft, the D-21 drone and the U-2, all withfeatures to reduce RCS) was so secret that no-one actually knew their capabilities.Lockheed were able to get CIA permission toreveal SR-71 and D-21 data to DARPA, andthis was impressive enough for the companyto be allowed to participate in thecompetition. It is said that the SR-71, the sizeof the B-58 Hustler bomber, had a radarcross-section similar to that of the Piper Cub,about 100 times smaller than that of thecontemporary F-14 fighter!

Lockheed won the competition in April1976 with a faceted design, which proved tentimes less visible to radar than that of itsnearest rival, Northrop. Scale models of bothwere extensively tested on the radar ranges atWhite Sands, where it was discovered thatboth had lower radar cross-sections than thepoles on which they were mounted! TheLockheed design's RCS was calculated asbeing equivalent to that of a small ballbearing, and senior Lockheed personnellobbied air-force officers and politicians byrolling equivalent ball bearings across theirdesks, saying 'That's how big our new fighterbomber looks on radar!'.

Above: The Have Blueprototypes were notdeclassified until longafter the production F-117A. Only a handful ofphotos of the tinyprototypes have everbeen released.

Technicians makeadjustments to a pole-mounted RCS model.Designing a pole with alower RCS than the -F-117 was hugely difficult!

RCS tests could bedisrupted by the tiniestblemish on a model'sskin, from insects to bird-excrement.

F- I I 7A

THE XST PROGRAM

Above: The XSTs and the early YF-117As were shipped from Burbank to the secrettest facility at Groom Lake at dead of night, aboard USAF C-5s.

When the Lockheed design's RCS was validated the wholeprogram was reclassified Top Secret - Special Access Required, andAir Force Systems Command took over the program from DARPA, toensure secrecy. Lockheed built two sub-scale prototypes (known asXSTs, or Experimental Survivable Test-beds) under the program name'Have Blue'. The aircraft had no USAF serials, and no DoDdesignations, and remained a completely secret project. These

prototypes were quite deliberately built lightlyand cheaply, using off-the-shelf componentswherever possible, including J85 engines. Thefirst prototype's role was to prove that afaceted aircraft could have acceptablehandling qualities, while the second woulddemonstrate RCS.

The XSTs were built and test-flown inconditions of enormous secrecy. No workerwas allowed to be left alone with a blueprint,and only a handful had any idea what theywere working on. When the aircraft werecompleted, they were shipped by C-5 Galaxyto the top-secret flight test facility at GroomLake. Here the first aircraft made its maidenflight on 1 December 1977. During this andall subsequent flights, all workers involvedwith other projects, and many of thoseworking on XST itself, were locked into themess hall. No-one who was not specificallycleared to do so was allowed to even see theaircraft. This rule was so strictly enforced thatthe flight test team's coffee mugs (whichshowed just the nose of a cartoon version ofthe XST, peeking from a cloud) fell foul of

GENESIS OF THE F-117These diagrams trace the evolution of the Stealth Fighter from its origins as the sub-scaleHave Blue, which represented the optimum 'Hopeless Diamond' shape to prove the LO concept.

SECRET ORIGINS

Right: The prototype YF-117A takes shape at theSkunk works. The facetednosecone has yet to beadded, and the engineintakes and exhausts arecompletely missing. Thetype's conventional alloyconstruction is apparent.Far Right: The woodenmock-up of the YF-117takes shape at Lockheed'sfamous 'Skunk Works'.This allowed systems tobe accurately positioned.

security and had to be used only in the presence of cleared personnel,and then locked securely away in a safe (not just a locked cupboard,but a steel-doored, combination-locked safe).

The XST remains an extremely secret aircraft. Both prototypes werelost in accidents, and photos of them were not released until longafter the production F-11 7 A itself emerged from the secret world. Thismay be because the XST's external configuration represented a closerapproximation of the ideal 'Hopeless Diamond' stealth shape workedout by Lockheed, with no compromises for production or weaponssystem performance. It is likely that a full-scale XST would bestealthier than the F-11 7 as actually built.

Lockheed received an order to build a production version of theXST under the program name Senior Trend. The contract was signedon 1 November 1978, and stipulated that the aircraft would have the

same RCS as the original XST wooden polemodel, and that the first must fly by July1980. The production aircraft would be afighter-sized airplane carrying two laser-guided bombs. Five would be built initially,with twenty more to follow. Lockheed missedthe contractual first flight deadline and lost$6 m on the first five aircraft. Fortunatelyorders totalled 29 aircraft, then 59, and thecompany made $80 m on the program addingin $30 m of free improvements to avoidcharges of excess profit! The pre-productionSenior Trend first flew on 18 June 1981.

SENIOR TRENDF-1 1 7A FIRST PROTOTYPE

PRODUCTION F-117A

F- I I 7A

NAMING THE BLACK JETThe production Senior Trend aircraft is today officially named as theLockheed F-117A Stealth Fighter. This is a misleading epithet whichtakes little account of the fact that this is perhaps the aircraft in theUS inventory least capable of any useful air-to-air (fighter) role. Likethe F-111 before it, the F-117 is a bomber in all but name, and thefighter tag is a political convenience and an indication of theaircraft's size as much as anything else.

The aircraft went unnamed for much of itsearly history, and there have been aconfusion of designations and nicknamesapplied to the aircraft over the years. Thename Project Harvey (after the invisible rabbitin the Jimmy Stewart film of the same name)was probably unofficial, while Hollywoodalso provided a nickname used by the earlyflight test team - 'Elliott', or 'Pete's Dragon'. Itis still uncertain as to whether the COSIRSacronym (COvert Survivable In weatherReconniassance/Strike) was applied to the F-11 7 A, or whether this was another stealthaircraft program which has remained 'black'ever since. When Lockheed gained a contractto build five FSD (Full Scale Developmentphase) examples of a production derivative ofHave Blue (otherwise the XST, orexperimental survivable test-bed) the aircraftwere known by the Senior Trend programname. Senior Trend was itself a completelyrandom codename, since although the Senior

Below: Behindcamouflage netting,Lockheed techniciansand engineers preparethe first Senior Trend forits maiden flight. Withpanels removed, theengines can be seen,together with their jetpipes, which flattenedinto broad, flat slots,hidden by the upturnedtrailing edge.

prefix is a standard reconnaissance codeword, the second word in the name wasselected randomly by computer.

The first five FSD aircraft used Scorpion callsigns, and were often known as Scorpions,after a Baja Scorpion successfully penetratedall the security precautions to show up on theprogram manager's desk! Aviation engineersand pilots are not always the world's bestzoologists or entomologists and soon gotmixed up as to what species the aircraft was.The name 'Cockroach' was soon usedinstead, especially by the less reverentialservice pilots. The new name stuck, since theaircraft actually looked like one! In the earlydays, a number of names and designationswere used unofficially, including Nighthawk(which was nearly adopted as the type'sofficial name), Ghost and Spectre, as well asthe simple and straightforward Black Jet usedby pilots. Outside the Stealth community,there have also been nicknames. Someapplied the designation F-19, seeing a gapbetween the US Navy's F/A-18 and thestillborn F-20. In fact, Northrop requested theF-20 designation as a marketing ploy for theirF-5G, and the gap was left deliberately. Thisproved extremely handy for the USAF, whocould honestly deny the existence of any F-1 9Stealth aircraft. For a while, after the aircraft

SECRET ORIGINS

came out of the black world, some elementsof the press called it the Wobblin Goblin,based on a misunderstood fragment ofdescription applied to the aircraft's handlingcharacteristics before the stabilityaugmentation kicked in during one specificearly test maneuver.

The number 11 7 was used before theaircraft became the F-11 7, the number beingentered in lieu of an aircraft type on officialforms and maintenance records. There havebeen suggestions that the designation wasused to fit in with the codenames and call-sign type designations used by Groom Lakeand Tonopah-based Soviet aircraft. The MiG-1 7 (Have Drill) was reportedly the F-11 3, theMiG-21 (Have Doughnut) was the F-114,while other types, including the MiG-23 andSu-7, took other designations. One story hasit that the F-11 7A designation was reportedlyadopted officially after Lockheed printed the

aircraft's Dash One flight manual with F-117Aon its cover. There was supposedly anunwillingness to re-print the document, eventhough the officially favored designation wassaid to have been F-19!

One thing no-one called the aircraft wasthe 'Stealth Fighter', since the very wordStealth had been specifically and deliberatelyclassified as top secret, and even behindclosed doors at Tonopah or within the designoffices which produced the aircraft, use of theS-word was taboo. Things change, however,and once the aircraft's existence wasacknowledged, the word stealth becameacceptable. So officially, today, the one-timeSenior Trend is the Lockheed F-117A StealthFighter. Although the F-117 bears the'Lockheed' label, the aircraft was actually theproduct of a small and discrete division of theCalifornian aerospace giant, the so-called'Skunk Works'.

Above: With extendedleading edges, and withits port wingtip paintedred, this is the first YF-117A, identifiable by itscentreline testinstrumentation boomand symmetrical pilots.The leading edgedogtooth was added latein the aircraft's career inan effort to improve takeoff and landingperformance, andparticularly to reducelanding speeds.

F- I I 7A

SECRET STRIKE FORCE:INTO SERVICEToday, any publication listing the order ofbattle of the US Air Force will openly andhappily tell you that the F-l I7A is flown bythe 49th TFW (Tactical Fighter Wing) atHolloman AFB, New Mexico, as part of AirCombat Command. With no two-seat F-1 17version, its pilots tend to come fromoperational tours on other frontlinetactical fighter types, not direct fromtraining. There is still a requirement for apotential F-117A pilot to have 700 flyinghours before conversion. This level ofopenness relating to the Stealth Fighter is avery new phenomenon, and is far from thesituation which pertained for the first sixyears of the aircraft's service career, whenits very existence was secret.

In the early days, the F-117A was seen as anairborne equivalent to the US Army's SpecialForces, or to the Navy's SEALs, with a covert'smokeless gun' role, which might includestrikes against terrorists or rogue nations onthe direct orders of the President. There wereplans for using the aircraft in larger, full-scalewars, but these were even more secret. Undera plan reportedly known as 'Downshift 02',for instance, it was envisaged that F-11 7As

Below: Wearing ED (forEdwards) tailcodes, theF-117A combined testforce are seen high overCalifornia. The second,third and fourthprototypes are seen withNo.831, a much lateraircraft used for test andtrials duties.

might 'take out' the Dacha of the SovietPresident. Complete secrecy was felt to beessential, not only to ensure surprise, but alsobecause some operations might be deniable.The very existence of the aircraft was notadmitted, and its operating unit and locationhad complex cover stories. While the USAFrequirement stood at a single squadron of'silver bullet' F-117As, the aircraft could haveremained based at the super-secret test facilityat Groom Lake, and might even havefollowed the U-2 and A-11 in being operatedby the CIA. But when it became clear that awhole wing of Stealth Fighters would beacquired (largely due to Congressionalpressure for a wing-strength unit), it wasincreasingly obvious that they would requirea separate base. Existing airforce facilitieswere too well known, and too open for thenew aircraft, and the decision was taken todevelop an entirely new facility. For a while,there were apparently plans to base asquadron permanently in the UK (foroperations in Western and Eastern Europe, theMiddle East and even the USSR), with asecond squadron to be based in Korea foroperations in the Pacific. The third squadronwould have remained in the USA for trainingand contingency operations in other areas.There were some plans to deploy the aircraftoverseas aboard C-5 Galaxies, with theirwings removed, but this was soon realized to

SECRET STRIKE FORCE

be impractical, because re-assembly and re-application of RAM was too time-consuming.There was always a degree of discomfortabout basing a secret aircraft at a USAF baseoverseas, particularly in the UK, where everyairfield is closely watched by dozens ofaircraft spotters, and where no airfield isreally 'off the beaten track' even to the extentthat major airfields in the USA often are.Macrahanish was reportedly examined as apossible base for the F-11 7, but in the end, itwas decided that overseas operating locationswould have to be just that, to preservesecrecy, and the search for a CON US(Continental United States) base for theStealth Fighter force continued.

Above: The first prototypewore the Christian namesof test pilots Farley,Anderson and Fergusonon its canopy rail.

Left and below: The firstprototype was re-paintedwith a disruptivecamouflage after its firstflight in an effort todisguise its facets. Thesmall vertical fins werereplaced after Flight No.7.

F- I I 7A

HIDDEN

Deep in the Nevada desert, in a remote partof the Nellis AFB ranges, lay the runway forthe Tonopah Test Range, one of manydisused runways and airfields within theranges. The 6,000-ft asphalt runway wasoriginally built by Sandia NationalLaboratories during the 1950s to supportnuclear weapons tests: the location hadpotential for improvement and expansion,while the only public land overlooking thebase was many miles away. The airfield wassubjected to a three-phase improvement andconstruction program.

Below: Armed guardssurround an F-117A as itmakes ready to taxyfrom its 'Canyon'somewhere onTonopah's darkenedramp. Until theprogramme was madepublic, F-ir7Asoperated only by night.

Under Phase I, from October 1979, the basewas reconstructed and expanded. Therunway was extended, and taxiways, aconcrete apron, a large maintenance hangarand a propane storage tank were addedstraight away. The USAF purchased 16 largefully air-conditioned mobile homes for abargain $1.5 m from Chevron Oil, and thesewere used as dormitories while permanentaccommodation was built.

Under Phase II the USAF added an extrataxiway, a new control tower, a 42,000-fthangar, a parts warehouse, a dining hall, awater storage tank, and extensive fuel storage

Below right: Tonopah'sgroundcrew used low-intensity 'wands' toguide the Stealth

!(>; fighters from theiranonymous corrugatedshelters, or 'canyons'.

Right: Access tosensitive areas of thesecret base atTonopah wascontrolled by palm-print scanners, withdifferent categories ofpersonnel allowed intodifferent areas of thebase, and wearingcolour-coded badges.

tanks. Phase III saw the runway furtherextended to 1 2,000 ft (a 2,000-ft increase),and further extensions were made to the ramfand taxiways. The runway gained arrestergear, and new navigation aids were installed.More fuel storage was provided, together witfLOX (Liquid Oxygen) storage, a fire stationand the first individual aircraft hangars toaccommodate the first 20 production aircraft.Permanent dormitories at last replaced themobile homes, which were relegated tostorage units until 1985, when all but onewere removed. The remaining Chevron traileiwas the TOCACL (Tonopah Officers' Club an